Charles Edward Brittan Jr(1870 Plymouth - 1949). High moor landscape in the fog. Gouache, signed at lower left "Charles E. Brittan", 18 x 34.5 cm (passepartout), 45 x 62 cm (frame). Framed under glass.
- The world as a transcendent phenomenon -
We view the landscape as if from a wide angle. The sparse vegetation of Scottish highland heather - the field of vision, so to speak - expands into the picture in a wedge shape, only to immediately exceed the limits of the picture to the side. This widening of the field of vision makes the objects in the very near foreground seem distant, even though they are almost tangible against the visibly diffuse landscape. The withdrawal of perspective gives the landscape a visionary character, which is reinforced by the bluish mist that spreads into the foreground and by the sheep, which visibly lose their visual reference points as they move further away. This visionary quality culminates in the appearance of the elongated, gently curving silhouettes of the mountains and the light phenomena that appear above them, which seem as close to the present as the diffuse yellowish-brown foreground.
Here Charles Edward Brittan congenially implements the Romantic pictorial idea developed by Caspar David Friedrich in his metaphysical landscape paintings, which took landscape painting to a whole new level. The gaze directed into the picture is blurred, so that from the realm beyond visual perception, something is able to form on the edge of perception, opening up a perception of the supersensible sphere.
About the artist
Trained by his father of the same name, Charles Edward Brittan painted mainly landscapes and animals, but also worked as an illustrator. He worked mainly in Devon, where he produced his most cherished views of Dartmoor, capturing its varied and characteristic atmosphere.
Selected Bibliography
Huon L. Mallalieu: The dictionary of British watercolour artists up to 1920, Woodbridge 1976.
Melissa Hardie (Hg.): Artists in Newlyn and West Cornwall. 1880 - 1940, Bristol 2009.
